What Donald Trump Revealed on The Dr. Oz Show

With the physical and mental health of both presidential candidates suddenly at the forefront of the 2016 election, Donald Trump took a somewhat perplexing approach to boasting about his own medical history while his opponent, Hillary Clinton, remains off the campaign trail as she recovers from pneumonia. After his campaign went back and forth several times about how much of his medical history he would release, Trump made a planned appearance Wednesday on The Dr. Oz Show, in which the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz read off some of the results of the Republican’s most recent check-up.

Members of the media were not allowed to attend the taping, which is set to air Thursday, but audience members described a brief conversation between the two reality-TV stars, in which Oz read the results of Trump’s physical exam off a piece of paper that the candidate handed him. Oz reportedly found the health of the 70-year-old to be satisfactory, despite being somewhat overweight at 267 pounds (not to mention his penchant for fast food). A press release from the show indicated that while Oz had gone through the results of Trump’s most recent physical and family medical history, conducted by Trump’s longtime personal physician, Harold Bornstein, he had not examined Trump’s own personal medical history.

The two also discussed Trump’s exercise habits and diet, revealing the real-estate mogul’s unorthodox views on both subjects. According to NBC News’s Katy Tur, Trump reportedly believes that his wild hand gestures and full-time campaigning constitute “exercise.” As for his eating habits, MSNBC producer Jesse Rodriguezlearned that Trump said he eats at McDonald’s because “at least you know what they are putting in it.”

The interview generated controversy even before it was taped, thanks to a growing focus on both candidates’ health. At age 70 and 68, respectively, Trump and Clinton are the oldest major-party presidential candidates in history, a fact that has come under the microscope after Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia last week. Despite mostly unsubtle attempts by Trump and his surrogates to capitalize on Clinton’s health scare, the billionaire’s medical history has also drawn scrutiny. A weirdly rapturous bill of health from Trump’s doctor, released last year, raised more questions than answers. Last month, it was reported that the letter was written in just five minutes, and not proofread, while Trump’s doctor hurried to finish his assessment as a Trump Organization limo waited outside.

Over the past several days, Trump has repeatedly indicated that he would release more of his own medical records, including the results of a recent physical exam that would, supposedly, bolster his doctor’s claim that he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” The Dr. Oz interview was heralded as a positive development in Trump’s campaign, though that anticipation was tempered somewhat when Oz admitted that it would be more of a softball interview than anticipated. “I bet you he won’t release” the results of his physical exam, Oz said during a Fox News Radio interview on Tuesday. “The metaphor for me is it’s the doctor's office, the studio. So I'm not going to ask him questions he doesn't want to have answered.”

Trump’s sit-down interview with Oz itself drew controversy, given the unavoidable parallels between their careers as controversial television stars. Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon by training and director of integrative medicine at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, found prominence as a television doctor and media personality after being plucked out of academic obscurity by Oprah Winfrey. He, too, came under fire for promoting reportedly dubious weight-loss supplements,hosting anti-vaccination advocates on his show, and arguing intensely against genetically modified food, which was cited by several Columbia doctors in an open letter calling for his ouster from the university. Trump, whose own knack for self-promotion has similarly gotten him in trouble, has also been criticized for his history of exaggerated claims about his businesses. The image of the two of them, side by side, was as unenlightening as it was revealing.